Quick Takes – July 2026: Album Reviews

A brand new set of what’s been brillantly termed ‘Vintage Shop Rock’ from the Nashville blues-infused Southern rockers that drags, kicking and screaming, elements of rock, southern rock, blues and soul.

Not quite ‘brand’ new, the album features songs from last year’s Hold The Mash EP alongside four new songs. We’ve already grooved on the riffy Blinded, stopped and started with asoul soaked Make It and The Healer brims with electric (as in exciting) slide travelling riverside-y blues but they’ve saved some belters to embellish the mash.

Fresh and fitting in seamlessly is the pot pourri of Nothing Left To Save, Ruby’s Reckining and that swing from full on Hard Rock fury to organ driven soul and rustic piano and mandolin blues. No wheels reinvented, Parker Barrow continue to prove themselves simply tremendous exponents of what is absolutley essential feel good fare.

If the above title pulls on possibly unthought, for decades, memories, the chances are that you are the target audience for this sometimes baffling, if always beguiling, release from Haines, a mercurial polymath, unable to sit on his hands or upon any one style, topic or genre. Fresh on the return of Black Box Recorder, this could not be more different.

14 tracks over 31 minutes might seem spread a little thin, but Haines works on the principle that if you don’y like any on particular style or direction, there’ll be another along in a minute. With songs and their titles encompassing Sooty, Mama Cass, Tommy Cooper and Graham Bond, there is a sense of scattergun, reproduced by the trampled upon genres employed.

Highlights, which outshine the lowlights, include the ersatz psychedelia of the title truck, with synths and recorder, the acoustic whimsy of the distinctly disturbing Mum and the wah wah funk-pop of Mick Robertson Says. It’s not big or clever, and Haines can’t really sing in nay accepted sense, but it’s fun.

Thank God for the internet. Possibly an increasingly less used phrase but back in 1999, the way forward for recording and funding your own musical endeavours was pioneered by Marillion. A lot of ‘what if’s led to setting the industry standard for self-funded projects. An album too that has a soft spot for many – partly due to the success of the rescue mission and a particularly inspired Manchester Academy gig touring the record.

The album itself swings from the dreamier side of Go! and Enlightened to the commercial fizz of Rich and Deserve, often in best Beatles/ Crowded House fashion, and the underrated extended Prog pleaser Interior Lulu. And as the dub vibe of House might be a step too far, the package is another Marillion remastered triumph with a live recording, 1999 fan club concert footage (previously available it should be noted) , working demos and best of all, an up to date documentary with the band interviews and reminiscing all with the benefit of both insight and hindsight. Great stuff for the hordes of Marillo fans and family and roll on whatever might be next for the treatment.

Broken Souvenirs captures Bywater Call at their most versatile, adventurous, and emotionally charged. When the opening words are an emotive plea from Meghan Parnell of “ooh bay-bee” (the first but not the last) the tone is set as PB expand beyond the boundaries of a single genre single and embrace a bold, wide-ranging sound.

The influences from Black Pumas, Alabama Shakes, Amy Winehouse, Shakey Graves, The Black Crowes and more, Broken Souvenirs slips effortlessly from feel-good retro soul and intimate acoustic moments to driving contemporary R&B. It’s a fulfilling, rich and dynamic journey from start to finish.

Stand outs are the late-nite club vibe of No One Else, the Bluesy mood on Only, the tumbling acoustic guitar simplicity in Clutter (by contrast musically uncluttered) and the build from acoustic to full blown S&B – soul & blues – of Way To Go is an uplifting blast. However, the full on slide and brass fuelled fury of No Friend Of Mine takes the awards for the biggest serving of swagger and sass this side of Christmas.

The bells! Is there anything more ominous than the tolling of a funereal bell at the start of a records? Ask Black Sabbath. And Witchsorrow. ‘Everything come to an end’ the translation of the opening epic Ominia Finiunur that lurches and slowly unfurls with a languid ooze.

Twenty years of Doom Metal has not dulled or dimmed the depths which Witchsorrow will plumb as they return from the Metal attack of 2018’s highly-acclaimed Hexenhammer. The celebration of sin drives Bacchus, while the positively rampant by comparison Hades Chains (featuring guest roars from Serena Cherry of Svalbard/Noctule) or the epic A Quintessence Of Dust (featuring Employed To Serve’s Sammy Urwin shredding a killer lead in a rare uptempo shift of gear), see Witchsorrow revel its the arcane, heavy and occult-edged

A dedication to total Doom, the album’s lyrics and title – taken from an occult book by the legendary occult author Dennis Wheatley – come from the idea that The Devil is present in everything and built on knowing when to let him in and when to cast him out. A truly dark affair and as they remark in an outing of dynamic magnitude, in triumph we rot!

Taking a leaf from the Frankie Archer book of spells and experimenting with sound design – the weirder the better – Yolanda finds Emma Hunter exploring the use of loops to weave flamenco inspired 1950’s style loops in carefully crafted portions.

Dark, brooding and powerful, the haunting vocal marks a presence immediately in Sun Blood (the promise of Tarantino in Mexico fulfilled) along with shimmering sweeps of guitar that raise a Flamenco head to accompany the just-about-controlled manic delivery in Where The Roses Grow.

Doomy and daunting, tribal percussion and ringing guitar offers a sense of olde-tyme TV soundtracks from the days of Steed and Simon Templer (check the intro to Here I Go and “your empty life covering my kitchen floor“) via West Coast psych. Prepare to be hypnotised by the likes of Snake and the sprawling big production number Morire.

Here’s an album that over 40 minutes – two vinyl sides in olde money – is proof a tidy investment that pays dividends. Travel back to another time right now.

“Folk-Jazz from Bristol” doesn’t really cut it, for this delightful release, the songs, all by singer, Rachel Lawrence, encompassing so more than than supposition might suggest. Think more a mix of N’Awlins and Mittel Europ, awash with clarinets and accordions, double bass and trumpet. Klezmer via the Crescent City. with a dash of the Andrews Sisters, if you like.

Lawrence has a rich and glossy sound, bending her larynx around classy constructions that sound timeless, swaying and reeling with rhythms that roll. Besides the 5 piece band, there is a roster of guests to add yet further shards of authenticity to the retro-mix.

From the harmonies that introduce the almost proto-ska of the Swarm, all brass a’parping, via the Grapelli-eaque fiddle fever of How High The Moon, the mood is infectiously buoyant. Squeeze-box ballads dance cheek by jowl with funereal brass band incantations. Try The Boat for some spooky melodramatics, bowed bass and burlesque, before you head off, highball in hand for dreamy lullaby, Mt Songbird.